World Wide Music Distribution

We’re happy to announce that we are now providing trend reports for Google Play streams. If you are subscribed to our Daily Trend Reports and Metrics Service you can now access Google Play trend data via the Trend Reports Metrics module in your Dashboard at Catapult.

We are proud to currently be the only distributor in the world that provides daily trend reports to our artists and labels for the top 5 music stores:

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We just launched the ability for our artists and labels to control the street date for each specific music store they authorize for distribution. In the past, our system only allowed one street date for all the music stores which created some problems for savvy musicians who wanted to capitalize off of the download stores (i.e.: iTunes) vs the streaming stores (i.e.: Spotify, Rdio, Apple Music).

For example, some artists with an already established fan base wanted to first only sell their music on iTunes and AmazonMP3 where customers purchase downloads of their albums and then at a later date (Say…3 months later) launch their music on Spotify. This potentially allowed the artist to earn more income since downloads clearly earn more royalty income when compared with streaming. We say “potentially” because for most artists, it isn’t very clear that this would do anything for them other than prevent new fans from hearing about their music. However, for established artists who have an existing and rabid fan base, it clearly could be the smart approach.

Artists could still have done that with our system, but it was messy (which we don’t like) and required them to contact Customer Support when they were ready for their content to launch in another store. The new process should be a much better and automatic way to control the release of content in the music stores.

We still believe that launching your music all at once on every platform, regardless of whether it is a traditional download music store or a streaming music store, is still the best strategy for most new artists (i.e.: Marketing to customers who would never have known about you otherwise), but we believe more in giving the artist the option to plan out what strategy works best for them.

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Well…sometimes we even surprise ourselves. Today, we coded for ingestion of Apple Music daily trend reports. The first reports were only just made available by Apple over the 4th of July weekend! We’re extremely proud to be the first (and currently ONLY at the time of this posting) distributor in the world to be able to offer this sales data to our artists and labels.

If you are one of our artists and labels and are currently subscribed to our Daily Trend Reports and Metrics Subscription Service, you can now view Apple Music Trend Data via your Dashboard at Catapult.

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We are often asked by new artists how much they are going to be paid per stream for streaming music stores like Spotify, etc. Unfortunately, it’s not possible to answer that question given the nature of streaming services and how they calculate payments. These stores pay out a proportionate share of the subscription income that they receive from their customers for the content they stream. This share of income changes every month and the ultimate calculation can depend on a multiple of factors such as the specific store’s total subscription income from their subscribers, the subscription tier of each subscriber, the total number of streams that take place in the store, and the total number of an artist’s content streams. Given that these factors change each month, there is not a specific amount per stream that can be stated.

However, with the launch of Apple Music, we can provide an amount that Apple Music will pay for Free Trial Streams (Streams that take place when a customer is under a Free Trial plan).

The table below lists the cost per stream for Free Trial users for most countries:

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In about a little over an hour, Apple Music will go live for the first time. We couldn’t be more excited to see and experience Apple Music.

Apple Music launches at 10am CST, and if you want to be one of the first users to experience this new streaming platform, please remember to update your iPhone to iOS 8.4 prior to launch.

Note for artists or labels who did not want their content to appear in Apple Music:

We are currently awaiting final technical instructions from Apple regarding the extremely small percentage of our artists that requested their content not be made available on Apple’s new streaming platform. It’s extremely likely that content that was requested not to be made available on Apple Music will actually be live on Apple Music when it first launches today until we receive these removal instructions from Apple. We will do our best to remove this content as soon as humanly possible but if you are one of the few artists who did not want your content authorized for Apple Music, you might indeed see your content go live in Apple Music for a short time following the launch. Please be patient as this is a watershed moment in the music industry and things are moving extremely fast and there are just some things that are outside of Catapult’s control currently.

Like this:

We will soon be launching the ability for our artists and labels to control the street date for each specific music store they authorize for distribution. In the past, our system only allowed one street date for all the music stores which created some problems for savvy musicians who wanted to capitalize off of the download stores (i.e.: iTunes) vs the streaming stores (i.e.: Spotify, Rdio, Apple Music).

For example, some artists with an already established fan base wanted to first only sell their music on iTunes and AmazonMP3 where customers purchase downloads of their albums and then at a later date (Say…3 months later) launch their music on Spotify. This potentially allowed the artist to earn more income since downloads clearly earn more royalty income when compared with streaming. We say “potentially” because for most artists, it isn’t very clear that this would do anything for them other than prevent new fans from hearing about their music. However, for established artists who have an existing and rabid fan base, it clearly could be the smart approach.

Artists could still have done that with our system, but it was messy (which we don’t like) and required them to contact Customer Support when they were ready for their content to launch in another store. The new process should be a much better and automatic way to control the release of content in the music stores.

We still believe that launching your music all at once on every platform, regardless of whether it is a traditional download music store or a streaming music store, is still the best strategy for most new artists (i.e.: Marketing to customers who would never have known about you otherwise), but we believe more in giving the artist the option to plan out what strategy works best for them.

The option to select store specific street dates should be launching very soon (Probably in the next week) since we are waiting for final instructions from Apple concerning the technical side of setting the street date for Apple Music which we think will be provided just prior to the launch of Apple Music on June 30th, 2015.

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Earlier this month Apple announced that on June 30th, 2015 they are launching a new streaming music platform called Apple Music to coexist alongside iTunes. This will directly compete with other streaming services such as Spotify, Rdio and Tidal. Catapult has signed agreements with Apple which automatically makes all of our artist’s and label’s content available in Apple Music at launch. However, if for some reason you do not want your content available in their store, please contact Catapult Support via your Dashboard and we’ll be sure to de-authorize Apple Music for you.

Also, with Apple Music, they are introducing a new feature called “Apple Connect”. It is a personal artist profile within Apple Music which allows artists to upload photos, videos and more to your own Apple Music profile which fans can follow. We think this will be a great way for our artists and labels to keep in touch with their fans. You can request your Apple Connect artist profile by visiting the following link and logging in with your Apple ID. If you are not with a label, just enter your personal contact information on that request page. Apple will then notify you when your request is approved. Please note that Apple has sole discretion on approving these accounts and it is outside of the control of Catapult.

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This month we signed agreements with the new music platform, Tidal. Founded by rapper Jay Z, it is joining the growing list of music streaming services like Spotify and Rdio.

If you selected the “Future Stores” option during the album submission process for your content, then your content will automatically go live in Tidal. We are currently delivering our catalog into their platform though it may take a few weeks for content to go live since they have informed us that they are dealing with a massive influx of new content from all of the major labels and distributors.

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Today, Spotify announced it has finally launched its music streaming platform in Canada allowing residents of that country to finally enjoy what most of the developed world has been enjoying for years. This makes Canada the 58th country to be added to Spotify.

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We are happy to announce that we have secured agreements with Shazam and are currently delivering all of our artist’s and label’s content into Shazam’s platform.

Shazam is a unique music platform that allows fans to use the Shazam App on their iPhone or other mobile device to “listen” to a song that may be playing in the background (Like at a restaurant). The Shazam App then analyzes the song to find a match in their system and then lets the user know what the song is and how they can purchase it or listen to the full version on other streaming music stores like Rdio.

Shazam is an invaluable tool to expand the reach of our artist’s and label’s content throughout the world and we’re excited to be delivering into their service.